Route reliability record
CLT→MCI
Charlotte to Kansas City
- Flights
- 1,214
- Period
- July 2025 to June 2026
- Distance
- 808 mi
- Carriers
- 3
This route lands a B, 2 points worse than the national rate of 77.6%. About one flight in four arrives 15 minutes late or worse, and those flights are late by about an hour on average. That is a workable record, not a spotless one. That rests on 1,214 CLT to MCI flights, with a median arrival 5 minutes early.
Best time to fly CLT to MCI: a 5am–8am departure, ideally on a Wednesday. Flights in that window arrived on time 86.7% of the time and Wednesday flights 86.6%, against 76.0% for the route overall.
The US average over the same twelve months is 77.6%, so there is little to separate this route from the country as a whole. The variation that matters here is internal: which carrier, and what time of day.
Key figures
On time
76.0%
Arrivals under 15 minutes late, of 1,188 completed flights
Avg delay
63 min
Across delayed arrivals only, not all flights
Cancelled
2.06%
National rate is 1.81%
Best carrier
American
75.5% on time across 1,169 flights
These figures cover 1,214 flights between July 2025 and June 2026. Beyond the headline rate, 8.4% of arrivals land a full hour or more behind schedule. That is the number that wrecks a connection, and it is not visible in an on-time percentage alone.
Carrier by carrier
Which airline is most reliable on CLT to MCI
Only one carrier clears this site's 365-flight floor here, so there is no comparison to draw. The table below is the full picture.
| Airline | Flights | On time | Avg delay | Cancelled | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA Airlinesthin sample | 15 | 92.3% | 65 min | 13.33% | A− |
| SkyWest Airlinesthin sample | 30 | 86.7% | 21 min | 0.00% | A+ |
| American Airlines | 1,169 | 75.5% | 63 min | 1.97% | B |
Departure window
The best time of day to leave
Departure time matters more here than the choice of carrier. The gap between the best and worst window is 16 points, against half a point between the best and worst carrier. Each bar is the on-time rate for flights scheduled inside that window.
- 5am–8am30 flights86.7%
- 8am–11am315 flights85.0%
- 11am–2pm181 flights75.6%
- 2pm–5pm329 flights71.5%
- 5pm–8pm20 flights—
- 8pm–5am339 flights70.5%
Scale runs 60% to 90%. Rows with fewer than 30 flights show a dash.
Book the early departure. Flights leaving between 5am–8am arrive on time 86.7% of the time, against 70.5% for the overnight window. That is 16 points of difference for no extra money, and it comes from the same aircraft having had no earlier flight to fall behind on. The 8pm–5am window is the busiest, with 339 flights scheduled in it.
Across the year
When delays peak on this route
This route's year swings by 18 points from best month to worst, which is wide. An annual average tells you very little about the week you are actually flying, so read the strip rather than the headline if your dates are fixed.
August is the worst month at 66.4% on time, 18 points below September, the best at 84.7%. Summer afternoon convection and peak-season schedules land on the same weeks every year, so this is a pattern you can book around rather than a run of bad luck. August was the busiest month here, with 117 flights.
Across the week, Wednesday is the strongest day at 86.6% on time and Monday the weakest at 70.6%. 16 points is a smaller lever than departure hour, but it is free.
Delay causes
Why this route gets delayed
One category carries most of the weight here. Late-arriving aircraft accounts for 58% of the 18,000 delay minutes carriers reported, and the remaining four split what is left. The split is by minutes rather than by flights, so a few very long delays count for as much as many short ones.
- 58%Late-arriving aircraft
- 28%Carrier
- 10%National Airspace System
- 4%Extreme weather
- 0%Security
58% of delay minutes trace back to a late-arriving aircraft, meaning the plane was already behind before it got here. That is a cascade, and cascades start small and grow through the day. Across 18,000 reported delay minutes here, that single category outweighs weather by 14 to one. It is the strongest argument for booking the first departure of the morning, when the aircraft has been sitting at the gate overnight with nothing to inherit. The split is drawn from 17,840 reported delay minutes.
The practical consequence: the 5am–8am departure is the one that starts clean. Its aircraft has no earlier leg to be late from, which is exactly why that window shows 86.7% on time here.
Cancellations sit at 2.06% against a national 1.81%, which is ordinary. Diversions add another 0.08%.
Connections and stage length
What a delay here actually costs
8.4% of arrivals land an hour or more late, close to the national 8.1%. That is the figure that decides a connection, and it says a 60 to 75 minute layover is reasonable here while anything under 45 minutes is a bet. Most delays on this route last about an hour, which a normal layover absorbs.
The 808 miles between these two airports put this in the middle of the US network, around two and a half to three hours of block time. That is enough cruise to absorb a ten-minute late pushback and not enough to absorb thirty. It is also long enough that the aircraft usually flies three or four legs a day rather than six, which slows how fast delay compounds.
The return leg is a different operation and performs like one: it runs 81.0% on time across 1,216 flights, 5 points above this direction. Departure banks, aircraft rotations and the congestion at each end all differ, so scoring the two directions together would average away a real 5 points of difference.
The sample behind these figures is 1,214 flights, enough that the headline rate is stable to within roughly a point. The hour-block and month splits divide that further, so read the thinner bars with more caution than the headline.
Work out the risk of missing a connection in MCI after this flight
What to do with this
Booking this route
Put together: the calendar is the biggest lever here, not the carrier or the hour. September runs 84.7% on time and August 66.4%, a swing of 18 points. If the dates move at all, move them out of August before you think about anything else. 1,188 completed flights over 12 months sit behind that.
Common questions
CLT to MCI questions
How often is CLT to MCI delayed?
About one flight in four arrives at least 15 minutes late, which is the Department of Transportation's definition of a delayed arrival. That works out to 24.0% of the 1,214 flights in this analysis, against 22.4% nationally. Delayed flights are late by about an hour on average.
How reliable is CLT to MCI compared with the rest of the country?
76.0% of flights arrive on time here against a national 77.6%, a difference of 2 points against it. That is worth a B on this site's grading scale.
What time of day has the fewest delays on CLT to MCI?
The 5am–8am departure window is the strongest at 86.7% on time. The 8pm–5am window is the weakest at 70.5%, 16 points behind. Later departures inherit delays from earlier flights the same aircraft has already flown, which is why the curve slopes the way it does.
How bad are August delays on CLT to MCI?
August is the weakest month at 66.4% on time, compared with 84.7% in September. Across the year that is 18 points between the best and worst months. Moving flexible dates out of that month is one of the few things that reliably helps.
Related
Where to go next
- MCI to CLT — the return legseparate record
- Charlotte Douglas International (CLT) delay statistics
- Kansas City International (MCI) delay statistics
- CLT to MCO, a related route70.6%
- DEN to MCI, a related route75.5%
- CLT to ATL, a related route83.3%
- PSA Airlines on-time record92.3%
- SkyWest Airlines on-time record86.7%
- American Airlines on-time record75.5%
- Why the first flight of the morning is statistically safest
- The best time of day to fly, according to 7.04 million flight records
Direction matters. CLT to MCI and MCI to CLT are scored separately because they are separate operations, with different departure banks and different aircraft. Compare the return leg.
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Source: US DOT Bureau of Transportation Statistics, on-time performance data, July 2025 to June 2026. Last updated 15 September 2026; recomputed monthly. How this data is collected.